


The Only One

by werelupewoods



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, fuckin tumblr text poting sucks so i'm putting the rest of this here lmfao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 13:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17850395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werelupewoods/pseuds/werelupewoods
Summary: The staleness of bloodied breath. The stench of rotting flesh. The beating of a beast’s heart, clopping of anxious hooves, scratching of eager claws, chattering of rotted teeth…Once again, Neil’s found himself backed against a wall.Kinda-sorta vent piece; was gonna just put this on Tumblr but Tumblr's text post system is broken as all fuckin shit so I'm putting it here instead LMFAO (also only half-edited so uh pls forgiv i'm tired as hell y'all)





	The Only One

The staleness of bloodied breath. The stench of rotting flesh. The beating of a beast’s heart, clopping of anxious hooves, scratching of eager claws, chattering of rotted teeth…

Once again, Neil’s found himself backed against a wall.

The small, sickly serow can feel the beast’s breath shifting his hair and clothes, the scent of blood and bodies making him retch, his nerves and the sickness they brew in his stomach making him feel utterly ill. All he can do is pull his knees up to his nose, hide his face in his hands, press himself against the wall, and pray that it kills him quickly. He doesn’t know when he started crying, but he can feel that unmistakable stinging filling his blindfolded eyes. He catches his gasps in his mutated claws, holding himself tight, shivering and counting the beast before him’s exhales…

But then, a voice:

“Y-you…

“You’re no hunter, are you…?”

It was said slowly, lowly, half-gurgled and half-growled, but Neil understood it well.

The serow swallows hard. He doesn’t know what to say.

_Was… was that the beast?_

The beast takes a limping step back, though it keeps its nose close to Neil’s body, scrutinising his every detail with its blue, half-blinded eyes. Its mind is far from clear, but… it’s been practicing. Recently, at least. Practicing retaining consciousness. Retaining sanity. Retaining hope.

Retaining what this boy seems to be quickly losing.

When the silence persists, Neil feels as though he needs to say something —  _anything_  — but all that he manages to choke through his fear-swollen throat is, “I’m… I’m sorry…”

Again, the beast steps back, the blood beneath its hooves sloshing noisily as it shifts its weight.

“Sorry… for what?”

The voice is clearer now. Neil feels his caplet and shawl shift with the monster’s breath once again — feels his tangled hair being swept over his shoulder by its noisy exhaling.

It… really  _is_  the beast talking, isn’t it?

But… how?

_I thought I was the only one…_

Neil pauses to catch up to his thoughts. He swallows hard once more. His tongue feels like a stranger within his own mouth. “I…” He thinks, but no answer really comes. What  _is_  he sorry for? Why is that his go-to phrase whenever spoken to? Is he sorry for his past, for breaking the rules, for disappointing his parents, for becoming the thing that he’s become?

And what does this beast have to do with any of that?

“I… I don’t know…” Neil manages to say, slowly lowering his hands, though also pulling his knees closer to his chest with the same motion. He can still feel the beast’s breathing and hear the thumping of its slow but steady heartbeat ringing in his ears — an incredibly simple yet profoundly meaningful sound in this dark time. The sound of life. The sound of survival. The sound of someone else.

There is a pause as the beast flicks its tail, then Neil can’t hold back his most present thought any longer: “I don’t want to fight you…”

The truth is that this beast is hardly as sane as it may sound in these fleeting moments of clarity. It can speak, yes, and it has been learning to cling to these moments of lucidity for the sake of conversation recently, but… well, it’s not quite at that state yet. The serow’s words sound like a threat to the more simple side of its mind. A rush of sudden sickness urges the beast to kill, but… no, no, it fights back — fights to stay here, and stay calm, and stay  _sane_. Much like Neil is doing in this very same second, honestly. Much like  _all_  of them that are trapped in this nightmare are doing…

The beast’s inner war manifests itself in the form of a low but loud hiss that tears at the back of its ribcage, and Neil once again cowers at the sounds of impending battle. Seeing the boy collapse into himself again kicks the beast’s Insight back to the foreground of its mind… somewhat. It doesn’t want to kill. Really, it doesn’t. It just… is lost, too, honestly. That’s all that this is. That’s all  _either_  of them are. They’re both just wandering souls.

And so the beast steadies its breathing. “What are you doing here?” it asks, its voice finally coming out clearly — almost sounding purely sane. Almost. Its pleasantly dark and wise (albeit somewhat snooty) voice is honestly calming to hear. It’s been far too long since Neil’s heard… a conversational colour. A voice devoid of violence and threats.

Neil, now somewhat warmed by the simple question and the tone in which it was asked, takes a few seconds to centre himself, then lowers his hands once again. He breathes deep a few times to try and quell his nausea; then, “I’m just… trying to find a way out, sir,” he says.

 _Sir…_  It’s a formality the beast hasn’t heard in what feels like centuries. Spoken with fear and hesitation, sure, but still far more respect than what it’s used to. The sound clears its mind just the slightest bit more. Its lungs begin to clear themselves of growls. Its mutated limbs cease their anxious kicking. It exhales smoothly. “How did you end up…  _here_  in the first place?” it asks, its voice now taking on a surprisingly fatherly tone — scolding but still concerned. “This area is… secluded from civilisation  _and_  the hunting grounds…”

Inhale, exhale, inhale, then Neil untenses his shoulders. He sniffles. “I w—… was chased, sir,” he answers honestly, his words catching upon his next inhale. He tucks his hair behind his ears, it still being disturbed by the beast’s bated breaths and tickling his freckled cheeks. “I… I don’t know if they’re still following me, b—”

“Hunters?” the beast interrupts, sounding irritated but still sober.

Neil nods. “I… Th-they fell back, and I kept running, and… and now I’m here,” he says.

The beast hums a bit. It’s an inhuman sound, but still one of pure contemplation — devoid of any monstrousness. Neil wants to know what the creature before him is thinking, but he fights the urge to use his Insight to peer into its brain. He simply waits for it to speak.

And it does. After a while, at least. It steps back, finally giving Neil space enough to stretch his legs out slightly and lift his chin. Then, it huffs. “I meant how you ended up here  _in general_ ,” the beast says, sounding… desperate, almost, actually — as if this question holds more meaning than just simple interest. “How  _this_ ” — it puts a heavy emphasis on the word, pausing long after voicing it — “happened.”

Neil’s Insight is keen enough that, despite the fact that the beast is speaking in nothing but implications, he knows exactly what it means. It’s asking how he ended up here in these hunting grounds — being attacked, being chased, being followed, being hunted. How he ended up away from home. How he ended up alone. How he ended up  _turned_. How he ended up a monster.

_A monster like itself…_

Now Neil thinks he knows why the beast is so desperately curious.

The problem is, though, that he doesn’t really know how to answer that question, because he doesn’t really know the true answer  _at all_. Figuring out why  _he_ , of all people in his order, was cursed and malformed is the entire reason he’s out on his own in the first place. The vicars back home said it was because he had lied and sinned — was a terribly rebellious child — and that this was his punishment, but… he doesn’t know for sure, honestly. He has no idea. He doesn’t know…

But it’s the closest thing to an answer he can offer

Neil’s found himself crying again, from thoughts of his past more than fear in this moment. “I…” Pause. He rethinks his statement. He comes to a different conclusion. “It’s… it’s my fault…” he eventually admits, just trying to keep his body and breath still. “I never listened…” he continues, now reliving all the moments in his past when he questioned his vicars, or didn’t listen to his parents, or uncovered his sinful eyes, or drifted into other thoughts during ceremonies and services… “I was… I was so horrible, and I never listened, and… and now I’m cursed… I’m cursed because of it…” Pause again. His hands shake in his lap. His tail curls protectively over his cold, trembling fingertips. “I deserve this…” he then mutters to himself, a sense of finality in his tone, lowering his head with the acceptance of his fate.

The beast’s own Insight has never been keen — not in its past life, and not in this one — but it can still feel the heaviness of Neil’s heart. The boy spoke solely in implications, but it’s clear in every motion of his fragile, feeble body that his mind played through a lifetime’s worth of mistakes as he spoke. It’s… a feeling that the beast can relate to, honestly, and that’s what hurts it the most in this moment. It knows what it feels like — to be cursed and afflicted, suffering and tortured, knowing full well that the only one to blame is itself and the abhorrent acts it did before turning…

A silence settles between the two as Neil contemplates his past, and the beast contemplates its own. Neil has no idea that his own “sins” are mere fleabites when compared to the atrocities that the beast before him had committed before its own turning, but… well, the feelings of remorse are shared, at least.

Completely shared…

So caught up in his own thoughts, Neil didn’t hear the beast shifting towards him. He flinches and tenses as he feels a cold, wet claw tuck itself under his chin, lifting his nose and focus along with it. Neil isn’t afraid in this moment, though — he can tell that the beast means him no harm. It’s simply… looking at him. Studying him. Neil is positive that, if he were unmasked, and if he could look into this beast’s eyes, they would almost definitely read the same exact turmoil and heartache as his own. “If this is our punishment,” the beast slowly begins, seemingly talking to itself just as much as to Neil, “then all we can do is  _survive_.”

The beast lowers its claws, but Neil keeps his chin up — keeps his blindfolded eyes steadfastly on the beast before him. His response is immediate — instinctual and rehearsed: “Penitence.”

The beast exhales hard, but its reply is… shockingly sarcastic, actually. “Something like that…” it mutters, sounding irritated, offhandedly huffing out the rest of its breath.

The casual sound makes Neil never want to leave…

He misses idle conversation so, so much…

The beast turns to look out the narrow hallway that leads to the outside world — a world it hasn’t dared enter in years. It can smell blood and steel quickly approaching — hunters. The boy was definitely followed. “You’re not alone, child,” the beast then says, turning its head back to look towards Neil, protectively — though Neil doesn’t know yet that that’s its intent — stepping between the doorway and the half-beast serow who still sits curled against the wall. “You will never be alone. There are others who understand you. You will find a way out of this nightmare. You just have to  _keep going_.”

Neil fights the urge to remove his mask. The last thing he needs right now is to add another sin to his shamefully burdened soul, but… he wants to see the beast before him — wants to know  _just how_ similar they truly are…

 _Does it — does_ he — _look like me…?_

It’s then that Neil, too, smells the blood and steel, and it sends him into an immediate panic. With a gasp, he scrambles to stand, reaching for his hips to make sure that his cleaver and pistol are still in their proper places — ironically, though neither of them know this, weapons that Neil had been given by the same man who had given this beast its own hope for the future. “Don’t give up, child,” the beast hurriedly adds, heavily stepping towards the doorway, its voice beginning to dissolve back into screeches and growls. Its legs twitch once more. Its jaw rattles, teeth chattering. Its tail flicks. Its claws scratch eagerly at the ground. “Stay strong for all of us…”

Then its voice is gone along with its lucidity.

Neil hears other voices approaching, and he knows that they’re hunters, and he wants so badly to help the beast fight them off so that they may then keep talking, but…

When Neil hears the horrifying screams that now tear from the beast’s throat as it lunges towards the doorway, he knows that the man he was just speaking to is no longer there. Whoever it was that was trapped inside this beast’s body — fighting to gain control of their shared mind — he’s not there anymore. Neil can hear it in the screaming, in the scratching, in the tossing of bodies and the tearing of limbs.

Whoever it was, he’s been buried once again.

But Neil…

 _Neil_  is still free.

He’s free, he has newfound hope, and he can run.

He can run for  _both_  of them — for the sake of their mutual struggle.

He’s not alone…

With a prayer for safety and a whisper of thanks, Neil hurries to the second floor.


End file.
